As they say, things are always a little bit bigger in Texas. Just like last season, the Texas Motor Speedway stretches out the weekend schedule and puts the Nationwide cars on the track all day Thursday. While that might be good for attendance, once again there was no TV coverage of Nationwide qualifying.
Since the Nationwide Series action is over, SPEED comes on the air Friday with a much lighter load than normal. Sprint Cup Series practice is at 1PM ET with the NASCAR on Fox announce team. Once that is over, SPEED has two hours to fill until Cup qualifying.
It will be Steve Byrnes hosting a one hour edition of NASCAR Live at 2:30PM with both Hermie Sadler and Bob Dillner on the SPEED Stage. Randy Pemberton and Rutledge Wood will provide the reporting for this show. Yes, you read that right.
To fill the final hour, SPEED has back-to-back repeat episodes of the gameshow called NASCAR Smarts. This program has struggled from the start. The format of matching a random NASCAR fan with either Kyle Petty or Rutledge Wood is just not working. Look for some renovations to this train wreck very soon.
Mike Joy leads the NASCAR on Fox team of Larry McReynolds and Darrell Waltrip back onto SPEED at 4:30PM for live Cup qualifying.
Click here for the TDP column about the outstanding job this team did last season during the Michael McDowell qualifying crash. Talk about the right TV team for the moment. Thanks to Preston Fischer for the picture of the McDowell accident. Click on it to see it full size.
Waltrip and McReynolds join Byrnes and Jeff Hammond to end the day with Trackside at 7PM ET. This is always a fun show and this week it features Greg Biffle and David Gilliland as guests.
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